


Light the Candle

by aces



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: Please do not leave unattended candles lit in your home.  *takes off Smokey the Bear hat*





	Light the Candle

“It’s a festival of lights,” Daniel explained to the rest of the team as he rejoined them in the street. “The season is winter on this planet right now, end of the year, days getting shorter, all the rest—so on the shortest day of the year they set up candles everywhere and hold a feast.”

“I always enjoy a good feast,” Vala put in and looked at the others expectantly. “Oh, come on,” she added when they just looked back at her. “We can’t leave _now_. That would just be rude.”

Daniel tilted his head at Mitchell. “She is right,” he said.

“Like we were gonna leave,” Cam said, walking toward the small party of village leaders who watched them from the center of the town. “My grandma taught me it’s impolite to turn down food.” He set his rifle down to shake hands all around with the village leaders, only confusing them a little by the gesture. Daniel just sighed silently.

They were shown to guest quarters amongst the villagers; Mitchell radioed in at the expected hour to let the SGC know they’d be staying to investigate the Ori situation amongst the locals. “There _is_ no Ori situation,” Sam pointed out, listening in to his report. “Not yet,” was Mitchell’s comfortable reply, “but we should stick around anyway, don’t you think? Make sure one doesn’t start.”

“Communal feasts are always the _best_,” Vala informed them as they took places at the long tables and benches in the great hall, festooned with candles on every flat surface that wasn’t covered with food. “You can sneak in and most of the time, nobody minds or even says anything _despite_ the fact that they all know they’ve never seen you before.”

“And did you make it a point _not_ to steal anything from these people when gate-crashing their parties?” Daniel asked pleasantly.

“Most of the time,” Vala said after a reflective pause. “I do have _some_ standards.”

Daniel blinked. Teal’c grinned and grabbed the nearest loaf of bread in order to cut it with the knife sitting by his plate.

“I feel like we should have brought something,” Mitchell fretted. “You just don’t show up to a potluck without at least some chips and dip.”

Sam was grinning at him. “Something else your grandma taught you?”

“Something my _mom_ taught me,” Cam corrected her. He looked around at the laden tables and chattering, laughing villagers. “Actually, it’s a lot like Thanksgiving amongst the Mitchell clan,” he added.

“It reminds me of nik’ta,” Teal’c said, methodically serving out slices of bread to his teammates. “The midwinter festival on Chulak was very similar to this, though we had a period of public fasting and meditation before the feast.”

“And not nearly as many candles, surprisingly,” Vala added, breaking off chunks of bread and chewing.

“We did not want to waste them,” Teal’c said, as serene as ever, but Vala glanced at him quickly and looked back down at her bread.

“Most cultures have some sort of ritual or festival like this,” Daniel was lecturing; and whether it was just Daniel being professorial or if he were actually trying to smooth over an awkward moment, nobody else on the team could tell. Vala still made sure to pour him, and Teal’c, some of the local brew before she served the others. “It’s a basic instinct in humans to hold back the night. Probably been around at least as long as the discovery of how to make fire.”

They ate and mingled with the locals; Mitchell kept catching small children as they ran past and turning them back around toward their parents, and Sam got into a genteel argument with the man who was the “city manager,” for lack of a better term, about how he could improve efficiency in the plumbing and sewage systems in the village. Vala flirted with every boy who came up to her shyly to ask her to dance, and Teal’c and Daniel helped with the procession lighting candles throughout the village inside and outside people’s homes and shops and the public buildings.

And at the end of the evening, the entire village and all of SG-1 trooped outside to admire the work of the procession. Candles burned everywhere, lighting every window and doorway and the streets and walkways. Night had fallen completely, and it was a cold night, everyone bundled up in their warmest furs and coats; the sky was clear, and the stars competed with the candles for sparks of light. The villagers were humming or singing, the children paying attention and trying to sing along, in an old, old version of their language that nobody really understood anymore. The gist of the words was pretty understandable, though.

SG-1 stood in a huddle together. Cam had his arm thrown over Sam’s shoulders, who had an arm around Teal’c’s waist, who was holding Vala in the shelter of his embrace, who had a possessive finger tucked into the belt loops of Daniel’s BDUs. They looked at the night sky and the candles and the villagers on this small planet in the middle of this very large galaxy and at each other.

“Holding back the night,” Mitchell said quietly. Sam nodded, Teal’c raised a thoughtful eyebrow. Daniel put his arm around Vala’s shoulders when she shivered.

“I like that idea,” Cam said.

“Me too,” Sam, Vala, and Daniel said.

“Indeed,” was Teal’c’s inevitable rejoinder, and it nicely summed up everything else they could have said.


End file.
